Battle Tips

Constantly dodge attacks, especially against bosses and in Merciless difficulty, as avoiding hits is crucial.

Pay attention to enemy speech bubbles to anticipate their skills and plan your evasion. You can pause fights to better analyze enemy actions.

Abuse Joker's ability to switch Personas. If an enemy uses magic, switch to a Persona that can nullify, drain, or resist that element.

Stock up on healing items and, in the early game, preserve and stockpile SP items by using vending machines.

Buffs and debuffs are highly useful. While not always obvious, they can save you or make fights easier. Skills like Rakunda and Tarukaja, or food items that grant these effects for free, are very useful, especially against bosses and are practically required in Merciless.

Ailments like Shock, Burn, and Freeze are incredibly useful for exploiting technical damage, breaking shields, and dealing significant damage, especially when combined with weaknesses. Dizzy and Sleep ailments also have varying uses.

Exploit ailments: Attack Shocked enemies (from electric magic) with Physical and Nuke skills. Attack Frozen enemies (from ice magic) with Physical and Nuke skills. Attack Burnt enemies (from fire magic) with Wind and Nuke skills. For Sleep/Dizzy/Rage ailments, attacking with Psy skills is an option, though not recommended due to low odds.

Get accustomed to fighting as and using all non-Joker characters; it is heavily advised not to ignore any party member.